Rookie Becomes First L.A. Policewoman Slain on Job : Crime: Her partner shoots to death the gunman, an illegal immigrant. Gates lashes out at the INS.

A rookie Los Angeles policewoman was shot to death in Sun Valley early Monday morning by an assailant who in turn was fatally wounded during a brief gun battle with the officer’s partner. Tina Kerbrat, 34, was the department’s first female officer killed in the line of duty.

Kerbrat, who stepped out of her black-and-white cruiser shortly after midnight to question two men drinking beer in public, had no time to speak or draw her gun, according to police accounts. Kerbrat’s assailant fired four times at nearly point-blank range, striking her once in the face, police said.

“There was no discussion whatsoever,” Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said. “It happened too fast.”

The gunman also fired at Kerbrat’s partner, Officer Earl Valladares, 45, who shot 10 times in response, killing the man. Police identified the dead gunman as Jose Amaya, 32, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.

Gates bitterly described the slaying of Kerbrat, the married mother of two children, as “absolutely senseless.” In the last two weeks, Gates said, at least 10 city police officers have been fired upon, five of them hit by the gunfire.

“If you think the war is just in the Persian Gulf, you’re wrong,” Gates said.

The police chief lashed out at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, an agency he had criticized last October after an undocumented Hungarian immigrant shot to death a homicide detective during a restaurant shootout.

Labeling Kerbrat’s killer “an El Salvadoran drunk--a drunk who doesn’t belong here,” Gates said that her slaying reflected “another failure of our immigration service (which) doesn’t pay much attention to those who are here, who ought not to be here.”

Ben Davidian, INS western regional commissioner, said he sympathized with Gates and his department, but defended his agency.

“I understand his anger. I have buried officers as well,” Davidian said. “Our people are absolutely working their fingers to the bone. When you’re faced with that immensity of a problem and the short numbers of staff we have, one begins to understand how difficult our job is to do.”

Davidian said INS attorneys told him that even though Amaya had apparently entered the United States illegally, he could not have been immediately deported because of two recent legal developments. Salvadoran applicants for asylum are being allowed to remain in the country because a recent federal appeals court ruling found flaws in the asylum process, and because a congressional decision allows their asylum applications to be heard again.

“We had ordered this man to forfeit (the U.S.),” Davidian said. “My attorneys tell me this fellow falls inside (the) El Salvadoran refugee case. . . . (He) can’t leave until he has an interview and another deportation hearing.”

Only a prior conviction for aggravated felony could enable the INS to lift the waiver, Davidian said. Police spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon said that except for a 1990 arrest for an immigration violation, Amaya had no criminal history.

At City Hall, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ordered flags lowered to half-staff until Kerbrat’s funeral. Flags descended at police stations across the city.

Kerbrat’s fellow officers at the North Hollywood station on Tiara Street slipped black mourning bands over their badges. A note left with a flower arrangement at the station’s front desk echoed Gates’ smoldering words: “In memory of Tina Kerbrat. We are fighting a war at home, too.”

Kerbrat, one of about 1,100 females on the department’s force of 8,400 officers, had graduated from the department’s academy last October and was still on probation, according to North Hollywood Capt. Bruce Mitchell. In recent weeks, she had been riding with Valladares, a 20-year veteran.

The incident occurred as the two officers patrolled near Sunland Boulevard and Cantara Street in Sun Valley, a bleak industrial strip of auto repair yards and fast-food restaurants bisected by Southern Pacific railroad tracks.

The officers were driving south on Vineland Avenue near Sunland at about 12:30 a.m. when they spotted two men walking on the west side of Vineland by the Sun Valley Park and Recreation Center, Mitchell said.

The men were sharing cans of beer from an uncovered 12-pack, said Mitchell, who debriefed Valladares after the incident. Drinking beer in public is a Municipal Code infraction.

The officers turned right onto Cantara, stopping in the crosswalk and next to the sidewalk where the men stood, Mitchell said. As the cruiser slowed, Valladares, who was driving, asked Kerbrat if she had ever written an “open container violation.”

“She said she hadn’t done one yet, so they decided to pull over so she would get the experience,” Mitchell said.

“It was routine,” Mitchell said. “It was a training exercise as much as anything else. They could have just driven on by. But they stopped so she could learn, and then this guy opens fire on them.”

The sidewalk was well-lighted, Mitchell said, but that did not help the officers. “It wasn’t a case of the darkness,” he said. “It was just so unexpected.”

As Kerbrat and Valladares opened their doors, one of the men on the sidewalk darted toward the squad car. Kerbrat, on the passenger side near the curb, was just rising from her seat when the man opened fire with a .357 magnum revolver. She was less than six feet from the gunman, Mitchell said.

Saying nothing, the armed man got off four shots. One struck Kerbrat in the face and she slumped back into the passenger seat, mortally wounded.

Valladares, who had circled around the rear of the police car, took cover. He drew his 9-milli- meter semiautomatic pistol, equipped with a 16-round magazine, and fired 10 times.

Seven bullets struck Amaya. Police said he died at the scene.

Keeping his gun trained on the other man, Valladares put out an emergency call. According to Mitchell, one of a dozen officers who responded, Valladares was at first unaware that Kerbrat was wounded. After the shooting stopped, Valladares handcuffed the second suspect, then walked back to the patrol car. He saw Kerbrat inside, but thought she was talking on the radio, Mitchell said.

Police held the second man, identified as James Welch, 24, on suspicion of a public drinking infraction and parole violation. Welch has a prior conviction for cocaine trafficking, said police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth.

Kerbrat was taken by paramedics to Pacifica Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

She is survived by her husband, Tim Kerbrat, a Los Angeles city firefighter, a son, 6, and a daughter, 3. The Kerbrats met at the Saugus Speedway, where her father and brother raced cars, said Rob Parker, the track’s photographer. Tina Kerbrat helped her husband build a car, but they gave up the sport a few years ago to buy a home and raise a family, Parker said.

Capt. Dan Watson, Kerbrat’s commanding officer, said her death “hits home especially hard” because she was both the first female officer killed and the mother of two children.

“When a mother dies under these circumstances, it makes it a bit more tragic,” he said. “I can’t help feeling that way, and I think there are an awful lot of police officers today on the LAPD feeling that same way.”

Kerbrat was the fifth city police officer hit by gunfire in the last eight days, police said, and the third from the North Hollywood Division--where two other officers were wounded Feb. 3.

North Hollywood Officers Jon Hurd and Richard Householder were wounded after making a traffic stop. Despite injuries, they returned fire, killing an ex-convict from Ohio believed involved in a recent armed robbery in Glendale. Both officers, who wore bulletproof vests, were released from the hospital and are expected to recover.

Two other Los Angeles police officers were shot and wounded in the line of duty last week, one in Watts and the other in Baldwin Hills.

“It’s unbelievable; it’s getting like the war zone,” said North Hollywood Detective Mike Coffey.

Times staff writers Michael Connelly and John H. Lee contributed to this story.